author
John R. (John Rawson) Speer
1910–1953
A pulp-era writer with a flair for the eerie, he moved from acting and Navy service into radio and dark fiction. His small body of work includes strange tales for Weird Tales and the novella The Carnal God.
1 Audiobook
The carnal god
by John R. (John Rawson) Speer, Carlisle Schnitzer
About the author
Born in Wichita, Kansas, in 1910, John Rawson Speer worked in several creative fields during a short life. Contemporary and archival sources describe him as a former actor who later served in the United States Navy, then returned to Wichita and worked in radio.
Speer is best remembered for weird and supernatural fiction from the 1930s, including work associated with Weird Tales and the novella The Carnal God, written with Carlisle Schnitzer. Archival notes also link him to KFH radio in Wichita and later work connected with CBS, showing that his storytelling extended beyond print into broadcasting.
He died in 1953, still only in his early forties. Although he is not widely known today, his name continues to surface in genre bibliographies and reprints, especially among readers interested in pulp horror, ghost stories, and old-time radio.